Pretend to be unavailable. Except actually be available. Just don’t look available. Don’t call or text him. Except call and text him sometimes. Don’t be needy. But don’t be too aloof either. Try very hard to figure out what any of this actually means.

Mutilate your body in a vain attempt to conform to a very narrow standard of beauty that you will probably never be able to attain anyway. Pay a lot of money to have strangers pour hot wax on your crotch so you are as hairless as a toddler. Blow your life savings to have a doctor cut open your chest and stuff you full of plastic bags. Because that’s sexy.

Pretend to be very adventurous. Fake that you like football and eating ribs and driving fast cars and risk taking. Definitely go bungee jumping and sky diving. You know, like a date on "The Bachelor." Adventurous girl = wild in bed. You definitely want to convey that you are wild in bed without actually saying that you are wild in bed because then you’ll look like a slut.

Do all kinds of kinky, freaky stuff even if you aren’t comfortable with it and it doesn’t make you feel good. You don’t want him to think you’re a prude and leave you for someone who is more fun, do you?

Never complain about anything. Men don’t want a woman who is a pain in the ass. But you should occasionally assert yourself, just not to him, because men also love bitches. So be very sweet and submissive, but also be a fucking bitch sometimes. Good luck figuring out this tricky balance.

If he tries to change or fix you, do whatever he wants you to. Dress differently, change your hair, eat food you hate, whatever it takes to transform yourself into his version of the ideal woman. Being loved for who you are isn’t really important.

THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT.

And you know it is. You know in your very soul that every word of this is wrong-headed, toxic fucking bullshit, don’t you? But you do a lot of these things anyway, even if you won’t outright admit it.

Here’s why you do it.

Because women are told from the time that they are little girls that we have to earn romantic love, and that only the most worthy women get “picked.” But love isn’t a fucking kickball team in seventh grade gym class. You don’t stand around hoping you’re good enough at the game to be chosen, and rescued and validated and told that you are lovable. We think it works that way, but it doesn’t really work that way.

The truth is that love doesn’t work any kind of way. It’s one big, beautiful, magical mystery.

I suspect it has something to do with a complicated cocktail of pheromones, timing, parent issues, karma, culture, fate, connection, and availability. Lord only knows what else is involved, but what I do know for sure is that when these things are all in line, it’s rare and it’s lucky. So many of these factors are completely out of our control 99 percent of the time, that it’s just pointless to even worry about them. Let go of grasping for love or trying to force it or trying to make it happen.

Here is what else I’ve learned:

You cannot make a man fall in love with you.

Seriously, if women could do that, if anyone truly had that power, we’d all be in secure committed relationship, people wouldn't cheat, sports bars would not exist, our houses would all be clean, we’d all get cards and flowers on our anniversaries, and no one would ever get cosmetic surgery and I wouldn't be writing this.

There is no code to crack, no love spell that actually works, no secret formula. The women who aren’t alone, the ones you see on Facebook with the adoring husbands who post cute selfies together all the time so that you want to stab them in the eyeballs, they don’t know something you don’t. They don’t play the game better than you. They just got lucky. At least for now.

And it’s not because they’re pretty or weigh less or dress cuter or are more successful or can do advanced yoga poses in public and post them all over Instagram. It’s not because they were more fun or more or less ladylike than you or because they give blowjobs with Altoids in their mouths or have multiple orgasms, hands-free, from penetration alone, and fling themselves out of puddle-jumpers at 10,000 feet when you can’t even take a comfy 777 on a three hour flight to New York without a full bar of Xanax.

A long time ago I set out on a mission to make someone love me. I went through a checklist of accomplishments (lose 20 pounds, make a ton of money, stuff like that) that I truly swore would make me rejection-proof. I worked very hard on this list. I thought of little else besides my goals of making this man love me and when I accomplished every single thing on that list two things happened:

1. I kind of started to hate myself for doing this in the first place because I knew I was compromising my integrity.

2. I did not “make” someone love me.

3. (Okay, three things happened) I gave up accomplishing things solely because I thought I needed them to earn someone else’s love, and I started accomplishing things that I wanted to accomplish purely for my own joy and satisfaction. Then I learned to love myself again, which was a way better feeling than having some guy tell me I have great legs (which I do, by the way).

Love is not something that you have to work for. You can’t trick someone into loving you. You cannot transform yourself into something more lovable. If a man doesn’t fall in love with you, no matter how much you wanted him to, or how deserving you believe you were of his love, don’t blame yourself or consider it a failure. All it means is that one or more ingredients of the mystery cocktail were missing and you had no control over the situation. So cry and eat some ice cream and listen to Adele and be disappointed and then get the fuck over it and go live a beautiful, wonderful life on your own terms without his sorry stupid ass.

Let me tell you one more time.

There is nothing you can do or not do or be or not be to make a man fall in love with you.

Detach from all of these ridiculous expectations and fears of loneliness and abandonment. Give yourself a break from the idea that love is work, because isn’t. Take a little rest from this. You need it. You’ve been struggling with this your whole life. You can stop now. Go have some fun just for yourself.

Love is a comfort, not an obligation.

Love is a gift that we give and accept.

Sometimes it is fleeting and we have to accept that too.

Love is not the highly classified code to an atomic bomb that only, like, four people in the whole country are allowed access to, so like a terrorist you have to try to crack it even if it fucking kills you in the process.

Love is not an outcome that we can manipulate to avoid imagined future suffering.

Love is the ultimate lesson in living in the present moment.

If you are in a man’s heart, you are already there. You don’t need to fight to stay because he will hold you there in that space on his own accord, and he will call you and he will text you and he will like your idiotic Facebook posts and he will make all the time he can to see you, and you will know.

Okay, so I realize this is more like a two month recap, rather than a weekly recap, but be patient with me. I'm a writer. We are delicate. I got all kinds of busy since Christmas. But here are all the things that have inspired me, made me happy, and made me think lately:

Brene Brown perfectly sums up the current state of my life in this quote.

I got this set of three pairs of earrings and I have strong passionate feelings about them and I think they are really reasonably priced for the quality and size (they're big!). I was so excited when they arrived and looked even prettier than the picture. I can't decide which pair is my favorite, but I think it's the rubies. I like red. And no, I wasn't paid to advertise. I found these on my own.

This weekend, I found myself with a sort of psychic hangover, so I sat around on the couch and watch free documentaries on Netflix. You have got to see Kumare. For real. Like right now. It made such a profound statement about a few different things. I won't ruin it for you, but it's about a young man who decides to fool people into thinking he's an Indian guru (he was born in New Jersey) and he ends up realizing that he'd been fooling himself all along. Seriously. Go watch it now. This movie was life changing.

I also loved The Search for General Tso, which is a documentary about the origins of General Tso's Chicken. Except it isn't. The popular dish is just the lens through which the film-makers tell the story of Chinese immigrants and their assimilation into mainstream American culture. And it's fascinating and heartbreaking and occasionally funny and altogether completely interesting and important. Really really well done.

I just got The List App, because I adore B.J. Novak and I liked the idea. I haven't made any of my own lists yet (I'll let you know when I do), but I've enjoyed reading other people's. Cheryl Strayed and Lena Dunham have some good ones.This

Last week my cousin came down to Florida to visit and we went to the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami for Ash Wednesday, and it was truly a beautiful day. This year I decided to give up being an overreactive asshole for Lent. Whenever someone does me wrong, which is, alas, bound to happen, I decided not to throw a fit, and instead to react with calm, kindness and empathy, even when I want to throttle them.

That's about it for this week. I have some fun new projects that I'm working on, so at the moment I haven't been blogging quite as often as usual and I haven't been writing for any of my favorite websites lately, though that will probably change in the near future. In the meantime, I am very active on my Facebook page (I post new things there every day!) and on my Instagram. I have to say that I really love Instagram and I use it as a different sort of creative outlet than writing. It inspires me to seek out different adventures and to look for beauty and happy things to photograph wherever I go, so I do hope you'll visit me there because I like to see your pictures too. If you follow me, I will follow you back.

Last but not least, of course, my book is available for pre-order everywhere! Yay! THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL LIFE will be out June 7th.

When I wrote my post about dating in the 90s I spent a lot of time reminiscing about my carefree (not really) life as a single girl, and one of the things I most pine for are the days when I could just up and leave the house without carrying around a bunch of heavy shit. This inspired me to recreate a reasonable facsimile of my purse when I was in my 20s, as compared to my purse as a 40 year old mom. I used to carry a clutch with some cash, one tampon, my license, a pony tail holder, teeny pieces of gum, red lipstick, and crotch wipes. Clearly, I had my priorities in order. Not pictured: metallic pink, Razor flip phone. Now let's take a look at the current state of my purse.

Essentially, I have turned into a pack mule, prepared for every possible emergency, even the ones that might involve a Princess Aurora hair clip.

(We all wanted to be like Ross and Rachel back then. Photo courtesy of Huffington Post.)

1. Then: Have your friends set you up with someone they know. You will probably not see this person until the moment you actually meet, unless your friend has a picture of them in an old photo album from college, so make sure you get a detailed description of what they look like over the phone. Hope they don’t lie. Now: You swiped right because they were hot.

2. Then: You could also check the personal ads in the back of your city’s weekly newspaper. Look for SWM, SBF, GHM, etc. Now: Tinder, OKCupid, Bumble, Grindr, the list of dating apps is pretty much endless. Look for a single yet polyamorous, non-gender-conforming, #sexpositive, post-colonial, anti-Imperialist, non-capitalist, vegan, pan-sexual, multi-lingual, agnostic feminist who is cool with a little light BDSM on special occasions.

3. Then: Ask mutual friends to tell you about them. Now: Stalk the living crap out of them on social media to be sure they are hot/ interesting/ have a job/ are not catfishing you. Google and Reverse Image Search are your best friends. Then lose interest completely because, eww, he used the X-Pro filter wayyyy too much on Instagram, and suffers from an embarrassing case of hashtag abuse, and she has a disturbing number of duck faced selfies and might possibly charge people to watch her do laundry naked over a webcam.

5. Then: You have to call their house to talk to them. Someone else (Roommate? Sibling? Parent?) will answer. You will have to ask if they are there. There will be an elaborate song and dance involving hanging up one receiver and picking up the phone in the upstairs bedroom as opposed to the one in the kitchen where there’s no privacy. There may also be messages written down on scraps of paper if they aren’t home. You will have severe anxiety wondering if their little sister actually gave them the message, if it was written down correctly, or if they can read the handwriting. If you’re lucky, you can just leave a message on their answering machine and hope their dad doesn’t erase it. Now: Text them. It’s way easier not having to talk to anyone.

6. Then: Allow the guy to pick you up at your house in his car. Now: Hell no is anyone letting a strange dude pick them up at home. You have seen the ID Channel. Everyone is a narcissist/sociopath/rapist/cannibal-axe murderer/ ISIS recruiter these days.

7. Then: Do not fail THE TEST. You know, the one where after he opens your car door you have to reach over and unlock the driver’s side door before he gets in. Now: Automated door locks. Instead, the girl now has to offer to pay. This test goes both ways, however, because the guy must absolutely not let her. Ever.

8. Then: When you’re driving to the place where you’re going to meet, as you drive you will need to refer to elaborate handwritten directions on a piece of notebook paper that she dictated to you in advance of the date, over the phone. Now: Seriously? Uber that shit.

9. Then: Shave your legs below the knee. Now: Go get a full Brazilian. Even if you are a man.

10. Then: Pre-date crash diet so you aren’t bloated. Now: Do a three day juice cleanse that costs $150.00 so you can rid your body of toxins and make a good impression, which you will not do if your body is harboring toxins.

11. Then: Dinner and a movie (as in actual restaurant and theater). Now: Netflix and Chill.

12. Then: Decide you want to send your lover a dirty picture. Buy film. Take the picture and have no idea how it turned out. Drop the film off to be developed at the One Hour Photo. Try not to blush or make eye contact when you pick up the prints and the girl at the register can’t stop snickering. Take the prints to Kinko’s to have them scanned. Endure more uncontrollable laughter from the employees. Take your scans home on a disc. Wait fifteen minutes for your dial-up modem to sign into AOL. “MOM HANG UP THE PHONE! I’M TRYING TO USE THE COMPUTER!” Wait another thirty minutes for the photos to upload so you can email them to PretEinGlittr1974. Give up and put the prints in an envelope and send them at the post office. Now: Dick pic, yo. Stand in front of the bathroom mirror, suck in your gut, fluff it up, snap some nice shots of it, and immediately text her. (She will then find this hysterical and send the picture to ALL of her girlfriends and both of her sisters and everyone will laugh their asses off at your ding-dong.)

13. Then: Three Day Rule. Now: #heisnevergoingtotextyouagain.

14. Then: You can’t leave the house because they might call while you’re gone and oh my God, you cannot NOT be there when they call! Now: Go wherever you want but keep checking your phone settings to make sure your texts are working. Post something on Facebook and refresh repeatedly to see if they “liked’ it. Are they active on messenger? Jeez! OMG why are they ignoring you like this?? It’s torture!!

15. Then: While in line at the grocery store, pore over print magazine articles that promise to teach you how to turn yourself into the perfect mate so that someone will want to marry/ have sex with you. Now: Pretty much the exact same bullshit, except now it’s on the Internet and you read it on your tablet when your friends share it on Facebook, while you’re in your Prius trying to find a parking spot at Whole Foods.

16. Then: Stay up all night long talking on the phone about anything and everything until you fall asleep with the receiver stuck to your face and you are suddenly awakened by the sunrise and a blaring busy signal in your left ear. Now: Stay up all night juggling three different text conversations with potential hookups and see if you can maybe get someone to come over for a 3am spontaneous booty call.

18. Then: Make your beloved a mix tape/cd. Every single song should have meaning and purpose. Lots of acoustic, singer-songwriter stuff you heard at the coffee shop. Agonize over the order. Do not forget that Mazzy Star song. Draw your own cover with rainbow markers. Include lots of curlicues, moons and stars. Now: Text them the Youtube link to that trippy sexy EDM/ dubstep song you heard in yoga and found on your teacher’s Spotify playlist.

19. Then: Obsessively read The Rules, make notes in the margin and try to act breezy and aloof and like you actually have a life. Now: Rules? WTF? There are no rules. You cannot even with rules.

20. Then: You get annoyed because your date flirts with the server and stares at every hottie that walks by. Now: You’re mad because you got phubbed (aka they paid more attention to their phone than you).

Picture from http://english.cri.cn/8706/2013/09/09/1943s786713.htm

21. Then: Go to lunch with your friends and recount every last detail of the date that you can remember and analyze every word your date said. Now: Live tweet the date in real time for your closest friends and 6,531 followers.

22. Then: Go out to dinner. Get some quesadillas or chicken wings. Now: Scan Yelp! to see if you can possibly find a restaurant that can accommodate everyone’s individual dietary needs. You’re doing that modified Paleo, Four Hour Body thing. She has multiple food sensitivities. There has to be somewhere you can both eat, right? And oh jeez, look, he’s written a bunch of rude reviews online and half of them don’t even use proper grammar. This dude is a troll! You cannot go out with a troll! CANCEL!

23. Then: Make up an elaborate lie to tell your friends about how you met by chance in a bookstore and it was just like a Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan romcom, because you would die if someone found out you found love in an AOL chatroom. Now: A bookstore? What is that? How could someone meet on Amazon? Does BarnesandNoble.com have a new dating app that I don’t know about? Does it work on The Nook or something?

25. Then: Go on several, well-planned dates to test your compatibility as a couple and really get to know one another. Invest some time before you sleep together. Now: Meet up for sex before you waste time or spend money unnecessarily on someone who sucks in bed.

Hear on the 6 ‘o’ clock news that there will be snow the day after tomorrow. “Some accumulation,” the weatherman says. He talks about the snow for less than 30 seconds. Continue eating your Hamburger Helper.

Go to the A&P in the morning and casually get some milk, a loaf of Wonderbread and some Velveeta.

Check the shed to make sure the big red snow shovel’s still there and that the kids haven’t used it to build a fort in the vacant lot down the street where they like to play unattended for hours with all other neighborhood kids after school. It’s there. The end.

Put the chains on the car tires, make a pot of soup and a batch of Chex Mix and pour yourself a drink. You are done.

If it snows more than a foot overnight, school will be canceled. You will just somehow know that there is no school because you will use your common sense. There MIGHT be a phone tree. Keyword is MIGHT.

Snow Day!! This means you can bundle the children within an inch of their lives and send them outside in whiteout conditions and 20 below temps FOR THE REST OF THE DAY while you stay inside, watch “As the World Turns,” smoke Eves, do your nails and wait for the snow plow.

Throw salt all over the front steps. Boil some water and stir up a few packets of Swiss Miss hot chocolate for when the kids come back in.

Looks like you're going to get two feet of snow with this one. Oh well. Stick your head out the screen door and take a couple Polaroids of the kids' snowman they built since you forgot to buy film and flashbulbs for the Kodak Ektralite. Too much of a pain to take the pictures to the Fotomat to get developed, and who wants to see a bunch of pictures of snow anyway? It snows ALL WINTER LONG. Big deal.

Ask some neighborhood teens to shovel your driveway for you. They gladly do this in exchange for grilled cheese sandwiches.

If the electricity goes out, pile extra afghans on the beds and put all the food from the fridge outside on the back porch. It’ll keep just fine in these temperatures and the electric will be back on in a couple days. Nothing to worry over. There’s always the kerosene heater and the fireplace or the coal furnace in the cellar.

Snow is now piled to the eaves of the house. There will be school tomorrow.

Let the kids go sledding at night after dinner. Have an Irish Coffee. Go to bed early.

Charge all devices. This includes the five iPads you own, three smartphones, the laptop, both Kindles, and your fancy toothbrushes.

Check to see if Anderson Cooper is wearing his casual clothes and if he has gone outside. If Anderson Cooper is broadcasting from outside, you are basically screwed.

Yup. We’re all going to die.

Brace yourselves. There are going to be a lot of Game of Thrones memes on social about this.

Snowmageddon is definitely happening. It is all over the Internet. School is now closed two days before it is supposed to snow. You know, to keep the children safe from all the people rushing to Target and fighting one another tooth and nail for the last loaf of Ezekiel bread, organic 2% milk, and cage-free Omega 3 eggs. Because if we’re going to go off our Paleo diets for some French Toast, it should at least be whole freaking grain. (I think?) Whatever, screw it.

There is a sugar coating of very fine snow on your flagstone walkway leading up to your meticulously restored craftsman cottage. DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. It is dangerous in these conditions. Oh my God, it is 33 degrees. Screenshot the weather app from your phone and tweet it. #brrrr #freezingtodeath #winterstormchione

But wait!! At least you get to wear your Uggs! And your buffalo plaid!

Receive an automated call at 4 in the morning that school is canceled basically until the end of the month because of the winter storm’s devastation.

Check Pinterest for educational snow day crafts and activities to keep the children engaged and learning. Do not let them outside to play in the inch of snow that just fell because OMG frostbite.

Take lots of pictures of the snow. Post to Instagram. The Amaro filter makes snow look like a photo from the Anthropologie catalog.

Post all the same pictures to Facebook too. Complain about how bored you are, but then hashtag your status #blessed.

Relent and let the kids outside. Bundle them up within an inch of their lives.

Forget that you didn’t make them go pee first. Unbundle them and make them all go to the bathroom. Then rebundle them. By now an hour and a half has passed.

Only let them stay out long enough to get some good candid shots of them building a snowman, even though you are the one who actually built the snowman because you needed it to look just so. Do not let them go sledding because they could get traumatic head injuries. You have read enough stories online about accidents like that and how they could have easily been prevented by just keeping children inside attached to screens all day.

Is this hot chocolate fair trade? And oh my God, who can you hire to shovel this away? Does your landscaping company take care of snow removal? Because there's no way you can figure out the ethanol powered, cordless, half solar snowblower you bought on sale for $900.00 because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

There is at least four inches of snow. The electricity went out for five minutes. You have plowed through the bag of ghost pepper chips and you are sure the world is ending. Scroll through your phone looking for the best deals to Aruba this weekend.

The day after the storm hits, the meteorologists will apologize profusely that they said there’d 75 inches of snow and ice and 89 mile per hour winds, even though you got maybe five inches total when all was said and done and it melted overnight. Blame climate change. The forecast models are very unpredictable. Shrug.

Let's get one thing straight before we begin. No one asked me to write this. No one paid me to write this and no one gave me free food so that I would write this. Trust me, I'm like the last person Chick-fil-a would ever want to shill for them. But I am going to write a brutally honest product review on the injustice that is Chick-fil-a's new Superfood Salad.

I heard, via the Internet of course, that Chick-fil-a was getting rid of its coleslaw in favor of some kind of kale bullshit, but it being the Internet and all, I figured this was another one of those hoaxes like that Zuckerberg is going to start charging you for Facebook unless you copy and paste some paragraph of foolishness, or that Hillary Clinton is secretly paying Donald Trump to run for President to make an ass of the Republicans and cause her to win. You know, stuff like that. Because seriously, Chick-fil-a would never, ever get rid of their coleslaw. It's basically a staple in the diet of most southerners, by whom I mean myself.

But, um, no.

Yesterday I found myself in the Chick-fil-a drive-thru ordering myself a Number 5, but being starving I ordered an extra side of coleslaw, not instead of the fries, but in addition to. Because that is how I roll. I need both for the perfect balance of salty and sweet and hot and cold and crunch and soft and the dark side and The Force and pretty much every binary pair that exists.

"Oh, yeah, soo...we don't have coleslaw anymore," the girl said.

"Huh? Like y'all ran out temporarily for the day?" I asked.

"No, we don't have coleslaw anymore, like ever again. Like it's gone for the rest of your whole entire, God forsaken life."

She didn't actually word it that way, but that is what she meant. Trust me. She meant that, and this news was life destroying.

"But we have this awesome new Super Food Salad in its place that's really great!" she chirped.

"Uh, okay...so, what is a 'super food salad,' pray tell?" I asked. Mind you, I am having a conversation with a loudspeaker here, while my daughter is shrieking from her booster seat in the back that she NEEEEEEDS some Ice Dream even though I told her she couldn't have it.

Chick-fil-a employees are so freaking happy sometimes. I think they dose them with Zoloft before their shifts or something. Or maybe they're filled with the light of the Holy Spirit - I don't know, but this girl just wasn't getting the level of the tragedy that had just occurred in my life.

Chick-fil-a got rid of its coleslaw. I'm pretty sure I just saw one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride by.

How could something like this happen, I had to ask myself. Let's go with my grandmother's explanation: This is a sign of the end times. The Liberals have won. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Chick-fil-a's coleslaw was the first casualty of The Rapture. It's like in The Leftovers. First the coleslaw disappears, next week your baby's going to vanish right out of its carseat while you're driving. Which, if you think about it all kind of makes sense. I can definitely see the holiness of that coleslaw. It was definitely one of God's elect, so yeah, I can understand why Baby Jesus would use it as a harbinger of Armageddon.

So basically, losing the slaw in favor of fucking kale means that ISIS is pretty much in charge of the Chick-fil-a drive-thru now.

What's next, you wonder. I'll tell you. You'll pull up to the drive-thru and order a sweet tea only to find that it's been replaced with kombucha. And this is how it starts, people. First they came for your coleslaw and you said nothing. Then they came for your half sweet tea and half diet lemonade, and you said nothing. Yeah? Next you're going to find that your nuggets are made out of Quorn. Then what are you going to say?

Now here's the thing. I am down with some kombucha. Broccolini is my spirit vegetable. Kale not so much, but fine. Whatever. I can deal with kale at this point because it's everywhere.

It just doesn't need to be at Chick-fil-a. Or if it does, it can be in addition to, rather than instead of what is the greatest coleslaw in the history of coleslaws (seriously, screw that mess at KFC, it's not even close).

Because I do not go to Chick-fil-a for healthy super food anything. I go to that quirky vegan place that just opened up across from yoga. When I go to a fast food chicken place I am not thinking about my microbiome, or my aura, or my arteries, or sustainable agriculture. Mostly I am thinking that I have raging PMS and need salt and grease RIGHT GODDAMN NOW. And this is how I prefer my fried chicken - with bigotry, ignorance, a week's worth of sodium, Jesus, and a gall bladder attack. Got it? You can even add in a few hormones, antibiotics, and arsenic and I won't mind.

I'm actually shocked that there aren't riots in the great southern cities about this. Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Charleston, where is your passion, your fire, your conviction? Rally and take to the streets! Our coleslaw is gone!! DO SOMETHING!

But I digress. I got the salad, as you can see from the above crotch shot. Yes, in order to get the full fast food effect, I ate while driving, although I'd like to clarify that I took the picture while parked. For safety, and also because I had to park to open 75 packets of Chick-fil-a sauce for my daughter who kept dropping them on my floor of the backseat of my car, which now, inexplicably smells like Chinese food.

Here is what I think of the Superfood Salad - it was like going out in the backyard, pulling up a handful of weeds, and stuffing them in my mouth. It was bland, green stems and leaves. Supposedly it has dressing, but I couldn't find any. It also came with about three dried cherries and a packet of granola, which I couldn't figure out for the life of me. It was like the big bosses at Chick-fil-a central were like "What do healthy people like to eat? Kale? Granola? Okay, throw some granola in with a broccoli kale salad. Whatever. Let's go stuff ourselves with fried chicken. Liberals. Bless their hearts. Them fools'll eat anything."

So yeah, we orthorexic, enlightenment seeking, bra-burning pagans like kale and granola, but just not mixed together for God's sakes. Needless to say, I left the granola out.

I ate the salad. I did not like it at all. I wept bitter tears for the coleslaw and the sad fact that I will never again be able to pile the coleslaw on top of the chicken part of the chicken sandwich and smash the top bun back on so that the coleslaw all falls out the sides and my PMS temporarily disappears along with every delicious bite.

And then I went to yoga.

Because that is what assholes like me do. We eat the worst garbage on earth and then try to Happy Baby that shit out of our systems. It's like how in The Godfather they'd massacre people and then go straight to confession.

By the time I got to yoga I was about to die/hurl/crap my pants/ speak in tongues. I was in serious gastrointestinal distress. Yet, for some reason I was still determined to stick it out and go to an hour and half long , 95 degree yoga class anyway. I guess you could call me a disciplined yogi. Ha.

Then it occurred to me WHY I was having such horrible indigestion. Because not only had I eaten Chick-fil-fucking-a, which is bad enough on its own, thank you, I had also eaten a cup of flipping kale. It was like I had swallowed some Ammonium Nitrate and washed it down with diesel fuel and then lit a match.

I was not okay.

Yet somehow, I did manage to get through the entire class, but you know it was bad when your friend, at the end of a particularly relaxing savasana, pops up and instead of bowing to you in anjali mudra and blessing your third eye while acknowledging the divine light that shines within your heart chakra, she high fives you and says:

"You made it though the whole class and YOU DIDN"T GET DIARRHEA!! You did AWESOME, Victoria!"

(I have the greatest friends on earth.)

Dear Chick-fil-a, please bring back coleslaw. Yes, it was really nice of you to offer me the recipe, but I don't want to make that shit myself. Bring back my coleslaw now.

If we hear another word about the “magic of the season” or if one more chipper shop clerk smiles and wishes us a merry freaking anything, we’re going to barf.

We’re over the holidays, right?

There’s so much to hate and be mad at that lately, we’ve been making Ebenezer Scrooge look like an old softie. Forget all that advice about how to have the perfect Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa or whatever else there is now. Screw that sugar coated nonsense. Let’s wallow in misery.

Want to really mess up the holidays? Here are a few tips on how to ensure that this is the worst time of the year:

Overschedule and over-extend. Make no room for relaxation, meditation or downtime because it’s the holidays! We are holiday gladiators! We will slay Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus and the Winter Solstice! Yes, even if we get a cold, which turns out to be the flu, which develops into a secondary infection and we end up with walking pneumonia because we will not be quitters.

Come up with a lot of really detailed expectations. Expect every one of our relatives to behave with the patience and compassion of the Thich Nhat Hanh. All single women should definitely, definitely expect that on Christmas Eve their boyfriends will propose to them, and that it will be exactly like a movie on the Hallmark Channel.

Send out a mass email to family, friends and coworkers detailing exactly which gifts you want—and be sure to include online links. Extra points if they are affiliate links because that’s like getting two presents. Don’t forget to demand that everyone include the receipts along with the gifts so they can be returned.

Be a perfectionist. Try to accurately recreate every last detail from the holiday celebrations we remember from our childhood and then cry in disappointment when they don’t “feel” the same or if one little thing goes wrong.

Gorge on fatty, sugary treats every day between now and New Year’s. Quit going to yoga and give up on exercising because the pounds are just going to pack on anyway. Bah humbug!

Be super-wasteful just because you can. Buy things for people that they don’t need, especially if they have a lot of excess, plastic packaging. Throw food away after parties that could be donated to a shelter. Create as much garbage as possible and buy more junk to clutter up everyone's homes.

Make elaborate and extremely rigid plans, especially for other people. Be sure that everyone knows exactly where they’re supposed to be and what they must be doing at all times during the entire month of December and when they don’t comply, don’t let them get away with it. Throw a giant hissy fit. Punish them!

Keep score. Who got what for whom? How much did it cost? Pay attention to who’s getting the best party invites. Facebook stalk friends to see if they’re doing more fun stuff and then one up them. Never get anyone a present who didn’t get one for you, because that’s just wrong.

Don’t do anything for anyone else. Don’t volunteer. Don’t invite our lonely friends over for movies and eggnog. Definitely don’t go caroling or visit the elderly because caroling is annoying and old people smell funny. Go ahead and isolate ourselves because everyone else is so self-absorbed anyway. They’ll never notice. Bunch of jerks.

Wait until Christmas Eve to go shopping and then go to the closest Wal-Mart near closing time. Get into a big fight with someone in the parking lot over a space closer to the door and then get into another argument with someone inside over the last Frozen doll because we had your hands on it first! (Even though we really didn’t.)

Get really drunk on peppermint martinis at our work Christmas parties and sing a rousing rendition of “Santa Baby” for your boss. Wake up the next morning next to that weird guy who works in the mail room. Then leave and start a bunch of rumors and gossip about other people to deflect the attention away from yourself.

The holiday season is the perfect time for honesty. Tell your sister immediately that you can’t stand her fiancé and that yes, she actually does look fat in that. Be sure to air every grievanceabout everything.

Don’t get the oil changed before setting off on that 1,500 mile road trip to see relatives. It got changed last year so it should be fine. That screw that’s been stuck in the tire is no big deal either.

Pass up on friends’ invitation to see a fun holiday show, and instead sit home and brood about ex-lovers while singing “Last Christmas” alone all night.

Hold grudges and bring up old hurts. Write nasty letters to everyone who’s ever broken our hearts and then send them. Never forgive because that means the other person wins.

Storm off in a huff when our partners don’t get us the right gift and make sure we them in detail what all our friends’ lovers got them that were way better and a million times more romantic.

Don’t call the grandparents on the holiday. Don’t call anyone at all actually. Don’t reach out to positive people we love under any circumstances.

Decide to get both a kitten and a Christmas tree at the same time. Put a lot of tinsel on the Christmas tree to ensure that we will be spending Christmas Eve at the extra-expensive after hours vet’s office so that the kitten can have surgery to remove the tinsel from its lower intestines and so it can recover from poinsettia poisoning and electrocution from chewing through the electrical cords wrapped around the tree.

Cynically tell everyone about the over-commercialization of Christmas and tell little kids that Santa isn’t real. He was invented by Coca-Cola as a marketing campaign. He’s all about consumerism. We are way too hip for the holidays.

Max out all of our credit cards buying presents to get people to like you. Open up some more credit card accounts and then max those out too.

The journey toward enlightenment is really freaking hard sometimes.

We read the books, we meditate, go to yoga, juice cleanse and wear mala beads, but then some idiot comes barreling down the road in a Hummer and just about kills us on our healthy and environmentally sound bike.

Our sister-in-law acts like a selfish witch.

A once cheerful, romantic partner turns spiteful and vicious following a breakup.

Friends betray.

Our parents disappoint us.

Some jerk throws a fit in Starbucks and makes the barista cry and we find ourselves really wishing we could toss hot coffee in his stupid face.

All these fools can really block our positive flow of Qi, and oh my god, some days doesn’t it just seem like idiots are everywhere? I know.

I often wonder how can I ever reach a higher plane or quiet my mind when I’m surrounded by a pack of nut cases? How can I learn to stop reacting to them and their drama so that I can find my inner peace again?

Jesus said: “Love your enemies” and Buddha said: “Hatred will not cease by hatred, but by love alone.” Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and every single other great spiritual teacher who has ever lived has agreed.

It sounds beautiful and simple in theory, of course; but when it comes to actually practicing it, how can we find calm and love when someone is behaving abominably? I mean, like, really, really badly? For me, this is easily the most difficult spiritual lesson that I will ever learn (and re-learn, and keep learning probably until I die). It’s super tough to stop judging and start understanding, but it’s a necessity.

When we can understand situations from perspectives vastly different from our own, and when we can truly feel where someone else is coming from, sometimes their behavior can at least make more sense. Know, too, that understanding doesn’t mean condoning.

Rethink Evil.

Many of us were taught, perhaps unconsciously, that evil exists, that there are good people and bad people. It’s not true. The concept of evil is a hold-over from times when people had significantly less understanding of psychology and human development, and believing in evil is a primitive thought pattern.

What most people call evil is actually pain and illness. Most people who do terrible things do so because they were abused or brainwashed or not adequately loved. Even more are simply mentally ill and cannot help their actions. They live in constant torment and suffering and lash out from their pain. Even psychopaths, guilty of the worst crimes, have been scientifically proven to possess physically different brain structures than non-psychopaths.

These people aren’t supernaturally evil. They have serious and terrible disorders that are beyond their control.

Set Boundaries.

It’s okay to walk away from volatile situations. It’s healthy to remove oneself from drama in order to breathe, meditate, create a calm space and find perspective. Stop making plans with the rude relatives. Compassion is much easier to cultivate from a distance. Don’t get caught up in the mayhem.

See the Offending Party as a Child.

If we can see someone who is behaving badly as a hurt, frustrated child it can be much easier to nurture and love them. Kids throw fits when they’re tired, hungry or sick. They have their worst tantrums though, when they are having trouble communicating their needs and emotions. Most adults throw fits for the exact same reasons and if we can realize that there is an underlying cause behind their negative actions, we can understand and perhaps help them to alleviate their frustration.

Allow for the Possibility of Extenuating Circumstances.

The story about the little boy on the train has been life-changing for me. I think about it almost every day and it’s been so long that honestly, I can’t remember where I first heard it.

A kid is being horrible, I mean horrible, on a train ride. A fellow passenger is just disgusted. The kid’s dad is doing nothing. The kid is just getting worse and worse. The passenger cannot even believe it. Then, the kid’s dad apologizes and says that the kid’s mom just died the day before. The child is terrified, grieving, cannot understand what has happened and cannot process his unimaginable loss. Hence the behavior. Suddenly, what once seemed annoying, disgusting and like bad parenting is now heartbreaking and completely understandable. The judgmental passenger realizes his error.

So, how are we like the passenger on that train when we see people doing awful things? Instead of judging and becoming annoyed, let’s try to imagine what else might possibly be going on in the lives of others. Maybe that jerk in Starbucks just found out his wife has breast cancer. Maybe his kid overdosed last night. You never know, and remember that you never know.

Account for Brainwashing and/or Cultural Differences.

We generally judge other people’s behavior through the lens of our own biases, but in many cases, things people do that may seem awful, wrong, ignorant and bad to us are behaviors that are ingrained in people from their upbringings, and which, in a different context or culture, are perfectly normal and acceptable. What can be an abomination to us could be a noble and heroic act to someone else (or at least perfectly normal and unremarkable).

Turn Inward.

If compassion for someone else becomes difficult, it can be useful to look at our own failings.

What about the times we behaved spitefully? No one is perfect. Every one of us has screwed up, made mistakes, lost our patience and acted like an idiot before. How did we want to be treated in the same situation? What did other people do for us that helped or harmed when we were in a volatile state?

Be the helpful one. Cut the other person some slack.

This post originally appeared on elephant journal, which is an awesome publication that you should read daily and support wholeheartedly.

1. Mid-October: When the Sears Roebuck and J.C. Penney’s Christmas catalogs come in the mail, give them to the kids and tell them to circle what they want. Order about a quarter of it. Do not order the rock polisher they keep asking for.

2. Continue about your normal routine until the second week of December.

3. Check the TV Guide for the dates and times when all the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials will air. Plan accordingly so the kids don’t miss them again this year. You don’t want to have to listen to Jessica crying about having to wait ‘til next year to see Rudolph.

4. Make a large container of Chex Mix to have on hand. Restock the liquor cabinet and be sure to purchase plenty of Crown Royal and the ingredients for pina coladas. Harveys Bristol Cream is good to have on hand during the holiday season as well. Do not forget both green and red maraschino cherries.

5. Around December 15th drag the fiberglass tree up from the cellar along with the box of Christmas decorations.

6. First, spray everything with several aerosol cans of fake snow.

7. String the tree with blinking, multicolored lights. Spend 45 minutes trying to find the one bulb on the string that’s burned out and thus making all of the other lights in the string not work. Replace that bulb. Become tangled in cords. Go into the den for a cigarette to calm down.

8. Come back in and add an extra shot of rum to your eggnog before hanging red and gold balls on the tree. These would be the Styrofoam balls covered in a layer of silky thread. They only look nice for about five minutes out of the box because the thread always get snagged on the tree branches and starts to fray and unravel. Spray some aerosol Aquanet hairspray on them. It might work. It might not. It also might make the ornaments more flammable, especially if they’re close to the lights, but c’est la vie. All these fire prevention tips are overrated anyway.

9. Cover the entire tree with tinsel. All of it. You don’t even want to see that tree. You just want to see a big, glowing pyramid of blinking lights and tinsel in your living room picture window.

10. Take the children downtown to visit Santa. Snap a couple Polaroids of the event. Give them each a candy cane and get home in time to watch “Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey.”

11. Pick up a pack of Christmas cards the next time you’re in the Hallmark store on Main Street. Maybe something in an elegant Currier & Ives style this year. Run home and write them out and then stop by the post office later for a pack of thirteen cent stamps.

12. Windex the protective vinyl coverings on your living room set and dust your ornate, gilt, rain lamp so your home looks nice for Christmas guests. Water the terrarium while you’re at it and stick a ceramic elf in the soil for holiday cheer.

13. Go downtown to the Sears distribution center to pick up your order while the kids are at school. Wrap everything and hide it in the shed outside where they can’t find it. If you run out of wrapping paper, just use the funny pages.

15. Attend the children’s public school Christmas pageant that is complete with a manger scene. Wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

16. Come home and save cat from choking to death on tinsel for the sixty-fifth time.

17. Put on the Donny and Marie Christmas album. Dust off The Carpenters’ “Merry Christmas, Darling” and that annoying Chipmunks record the kids love so much.

18. Dress the girls in matching, floor length, red velvet, empire-waisted, high-collared gowns with white ruffled cuffs. Put the boys in corduroys, plaid button ups with dog-ear collars and matching Hunter green vests. Throw on your new bright red pants suit with the attached silk scarf, finish with a spritz of L’Air du Temps and praise polyester! No more ironing! You are now ready to go to the Christmas Eve service at church.

19. On Christmas morning get the flashbulbs ready and take several photos of the kids opening their Lite-Brites and Slinkies. Relax while Matthew plays with his Starsky and Hutch car and the girls prance around in their new Wonder Woman and Bat Girl Underoos.

20. Slip into your new jumpsuit, wing your hair and put the canned ham in the oven along with a Mrs. Smith’s pumpkin pie.

21. Enjoy dinner with the family on the rec room pool table which you have covered with a plastic tablecloth printed with bells and wreaths.

22. Let the kids play with their favorite gift: COUSINS. The adults can have Irish coffee, fruit cake and a few Benson & Hedges in the family room while the snow falls outside (because it ALWAYS snows on Christmas).

1. Early September, arrange photo shoot for family Christmas card. Coordinate matching outfits of khaki pants and white button ups. Get teeth whitened and hair highlighted. Practice several poses with the family: jumping in the air, sitting in the grass, walking away from the camera while the little ones toddle adorably behind…

2. After your mid-September photo shoot, be sure to head over to the mall to admire the Christmas displays in the stores. Then go get a pumpkin spice latte to really get in the holiday spirit even though it’s 80 degrees out and technically still summer.

3. Go to Costco and purchase several inflatable Santas and snowmen and a herd of light-up, wicker reindeer for your front yard. Buy so many lights that your home will look like the Las Vegas strip of Christmas come December.

4. Find out the “must-have” toys this year. Start researching. Make a game plan for Black Friday.

5. The week before Thanksgiving begin decorating your home for Christmas. Think elaborate. Each child needs a tree in his or her room. Don’t forget that Olivia wants a PINK tree in her room. Ayden would prefer a PJ Masks Christmas theme in his room.

6. Have an anxiety attack trying to decide between getting a Douglas Fir and a Fraser Fir. Look for organic, locally sourced Christmas trees from sustainable farms only. Ask the Internet for help.

7. Hire a professional tree decorator to come and string the LED lights on the Fraser Fir which you chose because the Internet said it was the number one pick for Christmas trees seven years running. Worry that the warm white lights you chose are too “90s” and maybe you should have gone retro-chic with the rainbow lights, which might actually be too “70s” and then wish you’d have gone super-retro and asked if real, beeswax candles were available because how totally Martha would that be? Except fires. No, scrap the candle idea. Go with the warm white.

8. Do not be alarmed that the Christmas tree is UPSIDE DOWN. It’s okay. The tree decorator assured you that upside down Christmas trees were “THE thing” this year.

9. Stage a complicated tree lighting ceremony for Thanksgiving evening, but make sure you hurry up with the whole Thanksgiving dinner thing because you need to hit the stores. Black Friday actually starts Thursday night now and you want to be first in line to get the five dollar, robotic, unicorn pony and every single other piece of Disney’s Moana merchandise because you can SO sell the extras on LetGo.

10. Admire your holiday photo cards when they arrive via FedEx. The sepia tone looks fantastic. Praise your own good taste. Your family definitely looks like something out of the Pottery Barn catalog. Actually, no. The Restoration Hardware catalog. Sigh with relief that you chose “Happy Holidays” over “Season’s Greetings.” You’d agonized over that for days. Now drop the already addressed, pre-printed cards off at the post office and pay $437.29 in postage.

11. Host a holiday cookie exchange. Be sure to remind guests that it is a GRAIN-FREE cookie exchange because you and several other guests are suffering from wheat belly, and possibly leaky gut (at least according to your acupuncturist).

12. Take the children to gingerbread house making class, Seasonal Craft Explosion, Reindeer Fest, Santa Days Blitzkrieg and the Chanukah/Kwanzaa/Christmas/ Pagan Winter Solstice Hot Yoga Celebration of Light. You do not want the kids to miss a single event this December. They will not.

13. Become deeply concerned when you read on Facebook that egg nog lattes contain carcinogens. Virtually sign some sort of online petition about Starbucks and chemicals. Order an egg nog latte anyway, skinny with four Splendas.

14. Plan Christmas dinner. Purchase a set of Spode dinnerware. Order an organic, humanely raised, pastured turkey who was treated so well that he was named Ethan and kept as a pet before being slaughtered (yes, humanely). Then go to Whole Foods and buy a Field Roast because you can’t bear to actually eat Ethan.

16. Make a hip Christmas playlist on Spotify that combines remixed classics from the 40s and 50s with Indie covers. Think Dub-Step Rudolph followed by The Mountain Goats’ version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

17. Burn your arm making homemade cranberry sauce. Jeez, that stuff is like molten lava. Toss the whole pot and use the Trader Joe’s jarred version. Much safer.

18. Take some probiotics. Because stress.

19. Attend the children’s December Pageant at their Waldorf/Montessori Hybrid Charter Preschool. Post several photos of your daughter dressed as a Kwanzaa candle on Instagram along with a video of your son singing a Chanukah song in Hebrew even though you are not Jewish and Chanukah actually ended three weeks earlier. Wish everyone a good month. That can’t offend anyone, right? Enjoy a nice kombucha on tap with the other parents after the show ends.

20. Make homemade, wheat-free, peppermint scented, red and green play-dough to entertain the children during their school break.

21. Blind panic when you realize that OH MY GOD, you completely forgot to do Elf on the Mother-Freaking Shelf. Immediately locate said Elf and pose him on the edge of your toilet with a fishing pole and several marshmallows floating in the toilet bowl. Take a bunch of pictures of him for social media.

22. Check and see how many “likes” and “shares” your Elf pics got.

23. Let the kids watch the classic Christmas specials whenever they want. You have downloaded them all onto their iPads for everyone’s convenience. Olivia and Baylee have seen Charlie Brown 75 times. Today. Ayden is singing the Heat Miser song. Totes cute. Snapchat it with a filter of yourself as a deer, because you look way cuter as a deer, AND also add it to your Instagram because your ex from college still watches ALL of your stories.

24. Explain sadly to the children that no, Heat Miser isn’t real, but Global Warming is and no, there will not be a white Christmas this year because it’s seventy degrees out in late December again.

25. On Christmas Eve, arrange professionally wrapped gifts under the upside down Christmas tree. Set out a plate of date and coconut raw energy bars and a glass of cashew mylk for Santa. After the kids go to bed stay up until 4am putting all the toys together. Drink wine out of a quart sized Mason jar. It’s okay, no one can see you. I mean, unless you take a selfie, which maybe might be kind of like, ironic funny.

26. Do some breathing exercises. It will all be over soon and the kids love the holidays so much. It’s totally worth it. Think of the memories.

I didn’t believe the psychiatrist when he told me his diagnosis. There was no way I had OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? I’d seen those people on TV and I wasn’t one of them. I had a job and house and a car and a cat. And okay, so maybe I also never went anywhere without antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizer and actually, I did worry to the point where I made myself sick. I liked things in a certain order, and oh, actually I was repeatedly checking things, but that was just because, alright FINE. Turns out, I really did have OCD.

That was 15 years ago, and in the past decade and a half, I’ve learned a lot about the disorder that I share with approximately 3.3 million people here in the U.S. I’ve learned that OCD manifests completely differently in everyone, that it can appear to come and go, that you can have it and live a perfectly amazing life anyway, and that it can treated.

Since my OCD diagnosis, I’ve managed my condition in a variety of ways. I’ve also never been ashamed of having Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I speak about it openly as often as I can, because mental illness shouldn’t be stigmatized or hidden. I’ve also learned to have a sense of humor about it and about myself.

That’s why I wasn’t upset about the Target OCD Ugly Christmas Sweater that has caused the Internet’s most recent flap.

If you haven’t seen it yet, the sweater is a purposely tacky, red, white and green pullover that says “OCD – Obsessive CHRISTMAS Disorder.” And people are losing their ever loving minds being outraged about it all over social media. Angry tweeters say the sweater is in bad taste and that it mocks and trivializes mental illness.

As someone who has truly suffered from OCD for most of her life, I can say that I don’t feel like that sweater wishes me ill will this holiday season. I have not been marginalized or cruelly attacked here, and I have to say, it takes a little more than some inexpensive knit-wear to offend me. I am perfectly okay with making a joke out of my mental illness. In fact, being able to laugh at my struggle has been enormously healing. Trivializing the condition is actually a good thing, at least in my case. For me, turning OCD into a harmless joke has defanged the condition and helped to make it a lot less scary and easier to confront.

It hasn’t always been this way for me, though. There was a time when I probably would’ve seen the sweater and felt hurt and pissed off too, but looking back, I can see now that my taking offense would’ve been another symptom of the illness. Getting mad about every little thing, stewing in outrage and resentment, obsessing over real and imagined slights, not being able to let things go or control my emotional reactions to often trivial situations? These are all big signs that my OCD has gotten out of hand and I need intervention. When I act like that, to me, it’s letting my disorder win. And I’m not about to let that happen.

I’ve found that it’s far more productive to channel my outrage towards things that actually deserve negative energy. This holiday season there’s no way I’m going to waste my time throwing a fit over a red cup or a silly sweater.

The best way to advocate for the mentally ill is not by trolling Target on Facebook over a piece of clothing. It’s by helping the homeless and the incarcerated. According to prisonpolicy.org, at least half of all the prisoners in all the jails in America are mentally ill. The Washington Post reports that among the chronically homeless, the percentage is similar. Go out and do something to offer some assistance or comfort to these individuals this year. They’re the ones who really are disenfranchised and truly suffering.

As for that sweater? When I saw it, I thought it was hilarious, especially considering that Christmas is one of my condition’s biggest triggers. I’m considering buying the sweater to show that I shouldn’t take myself (or anything) too seriously during the holidays. For me, the sweater would be a wearable reminder that my mental illness isn’t a demon that can destroy me. It’s just another part of my unique and quirky makeup, and it’s taught me to lighten up because laughter, not vitriol, is empowerment.

You probably don't remember me, or maybe you do. I certainly seemed to make an impression on you. I'm the one who was walking through the parking lot wearing the blue flowered dress. I had on fuchsia lipstick, and a turquoise necklace. Your truck was pulled up to a restaurant and you were delivering something. I don't know what because, honestly, I wasn't paying a bit of attention. But when you saw me, you literally stopped in your tracks and looked at me. And you said: "You look beautiful in that dress, Miss. I hope you have a wonderful day." Then you went back to whatever you were doing.

I wanted to tell you how that made me feel, and it might not be what you're expecting.

This is not going to be an angry rant about objectifying women, or about how smart I am, or about how no one would say that sort of thing to a man.

I really just want to say thank you. Thank you so much for giving a random stranger a compliment. Because I really needed that compliment in that exact moment, right on that day, and because you stopped and were so kind, you taught me a pretty big lesson, but I'll get to that in a second.

When you saw me walking through that parking lot, you probably thought I was a carefree woman just on her way to have a good time. I'm assuming (okay, hoping) that you also thought I was a whole lot younger than I actually am.

You had no idea that yesterday was my 42nd birthday, and that I've been freaking out about that a little, worrying that I'm getting old, turning into a crone, becoming invisible, that my husband is secretly fantasizing about nineteen year old Brazilian girls in bright yellow, thong bikinis.

You didn't know that the reason I was walking through that parking lot was because my car broke down and I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch and had to walk the rest of the way to the restaurant. You didn't notice that I was tired, or that I haven't colored my grey roots in, like, forever. You couldn't see that I was worried about my daughter, because she has an abscess on her side from an infected spider bite and that the meds give her an upset tummy (or that later on that night I would hold her hair and wipe her chin while she barfed in the potty).

You had no idea that after my car broke down, while I was walking through the parking lot to get to the restaurant, that my friend I was supposed to meet for lunch had just called to cancel. All three of her children have lice and she had to pick them up from school. I drive her youngest daughter to school with my daughter each morning. A few hours earlier, I had fixed her little girl's hair when her headband fell out. Which meant that I had touched lice. And that there was lice in my car, so I was actually kind of glad that the car broke down because now I wouldn't have to get back in it. Because there was lice in my damned car on my 42nd birthday.

I wanted to Napalm everything I owned. I was itching like crazy, flipping the hell out, convinced that in addition to the abscessed spider bite, that now my kid had lice and that I had lice and my car had lice, which is probably why it stopped running on the way to lunch. I imagined taking the car to the mechanic and him stepping back and saying:

"Ma'am, I hate to break it to ya. The alternator's just fine. This car's got a bad case of head lice."

I had a lot on my mind when I walked past you, Mr. Delivery Guy. But you couldn't see any of it.

I really needed that compliment you gave me. Your timing couldn't have been better, and you truly made my day.

For a second I felt like Hell yeah, after all these years, I've still got it.

More important? You made me realize that there is a major discrepancy between how others see me and how I feel, and maybe this year I need to work on narrowing that gap a bit. You know, be a little more confident, realize that to the outside world I probably appear to have my shit together a whole lot more than I'm willing to give myself credit for. I need to be a little nicer to myself, even when I procrastinate covering those grey roots.

In spite of the car trouble, the abscess on my daughter's side, the puke and the lice, I still had the best birthday ever. I got a lot of presents, but yours, Mr. Delivery Guy, was one of my favorite.

We had a really fun Halloween at our friends' house. I dressed up as Frida Kahlo for my daughter. Last April we had gone to see the Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera exhibit and she was absolutely transfixed and hasn't stopped talking about it, so I decided to dress up like her artistic hero, which worked out very well. Here is a picture.

This week I made this really yummy and easy quinoa recipe that I saw in this video. It was as good as I hoped and we ate it for several days.

My husband and I had trouble adjusting to the time change, which resulted in us getting up at at four in the morning and watching this episode of Frontline about Syria. We both realized that we knew absolutely nothing about what is going on over there, and were horrified at our own ignorance.

I made travel plans to go see my family in Delaware and Philadelphia for Thanksgiving, so I am really looking forward to that in a couple weeks. I haven't been up there in two years and I really miss my grandmothers and cousins and extended family up north. There should be plenty of Nasty-Assed Recipes.

That got me thinking that I need some boots, since I'll be in cold weather, but I have no idea what kind I might like. Living in Florida, I only have flip flops. My shoe situation is a little sad. Suggestions?

I really like this song, Riptide by Vance Joy, and I keep hearing it on the radio. It's fun to sing with, which is a little meta of me if you listen to the lyrics. The video is pretty cute too.

On Friday, some of my girlfriends and I got together and made this homemade sugar scrub with essential oils. It was really fast and easy and I think I'm going to experiment and make some more for Christmas presents. I like anything that smells good.

Last night we took our daughter, who is five, to see the new Peanuts movie, but I didn't love it. It had a lovely message for sure, and there were a couple of sweet moments and a few laughs, but it was a little on the boring side and my daughter got really antsy in a few parts. I never liked the Snoopy Red Baron stuff as a kid either.

I really, really want this plaid dress (though I hate how they accessorized it in the photo), but I cannot imagine spending that much on one thing! I need to write a lot of best selling books so I can afford my own taste, I swear.

Yesterday I suffered the ultimate in First World Problems when I lost my Fitbit in Costco, and before I could find it, someone had already deactivated it from my account and registered it to theirs. I was completely distraught. I mean, how would I know how many steps I took without it?? Luckily my husband bought me a new one for my birthday, since we were at Costco anyway and now I have a few wristbands that have snugger snaps. My old one had a loose snap, which is why it fell off.

Today I watched John Leguizamo's Ghetto Klown. He's always been one of my great literary heroes. He was the one who first inspired me to write about my family after I saw Spic-o-rama when I was nineteen and it completely blew my mind into smithereens. In his latest one man play, he actually talks about how he began writing and this revelation he had when he started reading plays. He says "I learned that no matter how fucked up your life is, that you can put that shit down on paper." Check out this interview with the great John Leguizamo where he talks about Ghetto Klown and his career as an artist.

I'll leave you with that. I plan on having lots of adventures this week since my birthday is on Tuesday!

I have to admit that I take an unusual amount of pride in my zodiac sign, but every single Scorpio I've ever met has felt the exact same way. In fact, some of us (like me) have even specifically planned the conception of our children so that we'd have Scorpio kids. This stuff runs deep, people. But I mean, who wouldn't want to be the sexiest and most mysteriously powerful sign of the zodiac? Come on. Being a Scorpio kicks ass, but there are a few things we're sick of hearing all the time. If you want to steer clear of our notorious sting, please avoid saying these ten things:

1. "Ooohh, you're a SCORPIO?" (wink wink) - Yeah, yeah. We get it. We have a reputation for being freaks in bed. I'm sure you'd love to find out if the rumors are true, but guess what? There is zero chance that we're having sex with you with a line like that. You're gonna have to do a little better there if you want to seduce a Scorpio.

2. "Remember that super confidential thing you told me? Well, I thought it was okay if I told a couple people. You know, like my entire family, and everyone at work and everyone at the dinner party I went to last weekend." - I'll be kind enough to let you choose the manner in which you'll die, but after that I'm hacking your body into small pieces and feeding them into a wood chipper while I casually scroll through Facebook on my phone.

3. "I had sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend." - How lovely. I hope you enjoyed it, because it will be the last time either of you ever have sex with anyone ever again. See above. Only this time, I'm not letting you choose your own death. I'm going to take a chainsaw to both of you.

4. "I'm just not that ambitious. I'd rather smoke weed all day and follow jam bands around the country." - Scorpios don't even have a reply for that kind of foolishness. We're too busy self-promoting.

5. "Where'd you go to college, how many kids do you have, do you have brothers and sisters, how did you meet your spouse, do you have any pets?" - Stop. Please. Just stop with the banal small talk. We can't with this nonsense. Scorpios want to have conversations about things that actually matter and we can't stand idle chit chat.

6. "I'm not interested in the occult. That stuff is so silly and it's all make-believe anyway." - WHAT? You're not interested in ghost stories, horror, suspense, thrillers, serial killers, UFO hunting, unsolved mysteries, true crime, cryptozoology, quantum physics or Bigfoot? Wow, you are no fun whatsoever. Now excuse me so I can go back to reading conspiracy theory websites.

7. "That really important task you entrusted me with at work? I didn't care that much, so I just half-assed it and hoped for the best." - Scorpios have zero tolerance for people who aren't as passionate and careful about their work as we are. You pull this kind of crap with us and you'll soon find out that we are the heel of a stiletto and you are a cigarette butt.

8. "Someone told me something, and I know stuff, but I really shouldn't tell you, and it kind of involves you, but nah, I'm not going to tell you." - OH MY GOD. This is exactly how to make a Scorpio's head explode. We need to know everything and we need to know it now, so bringing up the fact that you have info, but then refusing to spill it, is definitely grounds for a stabbing incident.

10. "You look tired. Maybe you should stop working so much." - This will have the opposite of the desired effect. We'll take it as a challenge, slam a couple glasses of bulletproof coffee, stay up for three days straight and come out of it with an extra million dollars. It's just how we roll.

Scorpios can't help ourselves. Sure, we're passionate, jealous, temperamental, sensual, moody, creepy, control-freaks, but we know that deep down you can't help but love us anyway. It's our magnetic charm and hypnotic presence. We delight in it and know that you do too. So consider yourself warned, and if you don't heed my advice and you say any of these ten things, don't come crying to me when you suffer the burn of a Scorpio's venom.

Then I took a selfie that came out pretty well, so it is officially my new bio photo. That lipstick color is Revlon Fire and Ice. I bought it on a whim at the drugstore and ended up loving it even though it's really bright.

I am almost finished reading Jenny Lawson's memoir Furiously Happy and am enjoying it very much. I was particularly moved by a poignant scene where Lawson, alone in a hotel with bleeding feet, in the middle of a terrible anxiety attack, walks the winter streets of New York City in the snow.

As soon as I finish, I am going to read Anne of Green Gables, My Daughter, and Me, a memoir by Lorilee Craker. I am really excited about this because Anne was my favorite childhood heroine. Amazon describes the book like this: "A charming and heartwarming true story for anyone who has ever longed for a place to belong.“Anne of Green Gables,” My Daughter, and Me is a witty romp through the classic novel; a visit to the magical shores of Prince Edward Island; and a poignant personal tale of love, faith, and loss."

I wrote an essay for Babble about the upside to sick days. You can find it here, along with all of my other Babble articles. I have a few more articles and essays forthcoming which I will let you know about on my Facebook page as soon as they are posted (please like if you haven't already).

I plan on doing a recap every Friday (or as often as possible), so if you have anything you think I might like or think I should share, please email me at vcf@victoriafedden.com or message me on Facebook and I will be happy to check it out. Have a good weekend and Happy Halloween!

This week is the annual preschool bake sale that I look forward to each fall. It's given me a newfound sense of purpose in my life, and I was going to make these Slutty Brownies from What's Gaby Cooking (who also took the above picture). Slutty Brownies are a layer of chocolate chip cookie on the bottom, topped with a layer of Oreos, covered with a layer of brownie, and all that is baked together and cut into squares like regular brownies. This sounded really good and bad at the same time to me, and like they would really sell big at the bake sale, and I particularly support this recipe's use of homemade cookie dough and brownie batter (you can take a shortcut and use store bought cookie dough and box brownie mix).

Only these brownies are apparently whores. hence their name.

But I beg to differ. I think it's really wrong to slut shame an innocent dessert and this sort of thing needs to stop.

These brownies are confident about their sexuality. They are Liberated Brownies!

These brownies are definitely dressing up like a French maid for Halloween. They post a lot of duck faced selfies of themselves on Instagram too. These brownies like to show their cleavage, and yes, they've had a lot of partners, sometimes several in one day, but this was a matter of personal choice. These brownies like sex and aren't afraid to admit it. Publicly. Often. Sometimes when it's really inappropriate to do so, but still. These brownies will hook up with your boyfriend at a party after you leave, but only because they were really drunk. They wear too much makeup and dance on bars.

These brownies go both ways (you can add crushed pretzels to make them salty AND sweet) and they will gladly make out with girls, but only if there are lots of guys watching, because these brownies are all about the spectacle. They fantasize about stripping one day too. It's totally their personality to try out the local titty bar's amateur night. And win. These brownies are someone's mistress. They are definitely on Ashley Madison. They swallow. These brownies will watch porn with you. Naked. These brownies can't keep their hands off you. They want it all the time. You might have to block their number on your phone because they'll send you racy texts all night long and beg you, at three in the morning, to come over and eat them, and it will be very hard to resist.

These brownies are PAN-sexual (see what I did there?), and they shouldn't be ashamed of their decadence, their hedonism, the Oreo cream inside of them! They should be proud and unabashed.

So let's not call them slutty and let's celebrate these brownies for their self-assuredness, and let's put them in our mouths whenever we get the chance, because they are truly delicious.

That said, I didn't end up making them for the bake sale. I thought they would really intimidate the angel food cupcakes.

Fall is supposed to be my favorite season. After all, I’m a November baby, a serious Scorpio. I should be all about frolicking in the leaves with my hands full of gingerbread. Usually I’m really enthusiastic by now, but for some reason, this year I am overcome with a bad case of autumnal meh. I feel like poor Linus shivering all night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to come. I’m just not in the spirit. Case in point? The following list of ways in which I have already failed at fall.

I have this horrible competitive streak. I always have to be the best and this need for perfection often manifests itself in weird ways. Like with the Halloween candy. I want to give out the very best. I must give out the best, and if I don't give out the best Halloween candy this year I will feel like a failure. And yes, I know how totally ridiculous this is. I am well aware. Also, how would I even know if my candy was the best, unless I went trick or treating in disguise, saying I was a really, unusually tall eight year old? I just need to FEEL like I'm the best. It's a matter of serious pride.

The other day, I went to the grocery store to get Halloween candy and to my utter and very real horror, I discovered that candy is freaking expensive. It was over ten dollars for a bag of Nestle Crunches. Good lord. I couldn't even find Kit-Kats, and a small bag of mini-Reeses was the same price. When did candy get so expensive? Unfortunately I had to settle, because my need for perfection was overshadowed by my need to save money. I got some Blow-Pops, partly because I like them.

Being a discriminating connoisseur Halloween treats, I always hoped for certain kinds of candy in my orange, plastic pumpkin as a kid. I was strictly into Reeses Cups, Snickers, Nestle Crunch and Kit-Kats. That's all the candy I liked. I remember feeling distinctly gypped when I got a handful of Bit-o-Honeys. Sugar Daddies were even worse. Gum was usually okay because you could trade it with the kids at school, and it was usually Bazooka.

Bazooka bubble gum is one of the candies I always associate with Halloween. I don't remember having it other times of year. Same goes for Dums-Dums lollipops. I especially remember the cream soda flavor, which I didn't like. I think my favorite Dum-Dum was green apple possibly, maybe pineapple, but Dum-Dums can't compare to a good purple Blow Pop, which is not to be confused with a Tootsie-Pop, because those are disgusting.

Tootsie Rolls (eww) fall into the category of yucky candy. We used to sculpt them to look like turds and chase each other around with them saying they were cat poop, and Good and Plenty may possibly be the worst candy ever made. Its only redeeming quality was that it looked like capsules and was good when you were playing doctor if you needed some pretend pills to give to the kids who had pretend lung cancer from too many candy cigarettes. Smarties also made great pills, as they look like aspirin. Other gross candies include: Necco wafers, Mike and Ike, Black Licorice, brown candy corn (orange was okay, but the brown one was totally out of the question), the aforementioned tooth-pulling Sugar Daddies and bland Three Musketeers. Remember those horrible Life-Savers lollipops that were vanilla cream and either orange or strawberry swirled? Those things were awful. Regular Life-Savers were fine. Good even, especially if you got one of those exotic flavored rolls with the dark purple ones and the pineapple ones. I never have figured out what flavor those dark purple ones were, but they were delicious.

Worse than all these gross candies were the rogue treat givers who decided they had to do things their own way. These people can be divided into two distinct categories. First we have the people who, in some idealistic fog of Halloweens past, remember a time when everyone didn't fear razors and cyanide in treats, and decided to go all out and make homemade treats. This was the biggest rip-off ever because the second you got home you knew the homemade treat was going straight into the trash and all that work for was naught. I never understood why people did this when they could just buy a bag of Snicker bars. Same goes for candied and caramel apples, which made your plastic pumpkin feel like you were lugging around a solid rock which reminded you even more that the second you got home it was going in the garbage too, so all the heaving and dragging and carrying that weight around was a waste of strength, which of course, an equal weight of Snicker bars would not have been.

Worse yet were the people who decided to give out "healthy" treats. These people were decidedly anti-Halloween. We had a couple in every neighborhood I lived in. I swear there's someone like this on every cul-de-sac across America, and as a child I vowed never to grow up to be the sort of person who'd have the nerve to pass out small, red boxes of raisins when costumed children knocked at my door. Those people are evil. The raisins could have at least been chocolate covered. I hate those things, but at least they're better than plain raisins. My God.

One year some ass-wad on my street got the brilliant idea to pass out trial sized tubes of toothpaste and little toothbrushes. I know this person probably spent a lot of money on this, unless he or she was a dentist and got them for free, and I know this person was probably thinking that we children were going to rot out our teeth on all the other candy we were getting, so perhaps this person felt they were looking out for our best interests. We disagreed. For years after that house got its pumpkins smashed every Mischief Night and they stopped participating in trick or treat and turned off their porch lights, likely huddled inside with the shades drawn hoping the neighborhood children would think they were out of town or something. We weren't fooled. We knew the toothpaste people were like Halloween grinches; no fun and ruining the spirit of our favorite holiday.

The funny thing is that I rarely ate much of my Halloween candy. I'd eat a couple pieces that night and maybe the next day. The rest I gave away. I liked the hunt more than the spoils, I think. The idea of total strangers dumping handfuls of candy at me was a genius concept, I thought and I think I liked the idea of piles of candy more than actual piles of candy, especially if they involved Good and Plenty.

What were your favorite and most hated Halloween candies? What candies bring back the most childhood memories? What are you giving out this year?

Yesterday I wrote a post on Scary Mommy called Ten Moms I Can No Longer Speak To. Please check it out if you haven't already. It seems the post struck a nerve, but there was an unexpected side effect. A lot of people messaged and emailed and commented to me that they really wanted to know what the book was I was talking about - that one that helped me pretty much stop my daughter's tantrums.

Last year I had mentioned to a friend that I was having trouble dealing with my very strong willed preschooler, and she actually ordered POSITIVE TIME OUT BY JANE NELSEN, ED.D. for me. When it arrived a couple days later, I read it cover to cover. My husband did too and we discussed it. After that, I put the book's advice into action and it was seriously LIFE CHANGING. This book works. For me at least. But look, it's going to take some effort and a lot of that effort is going to involve you as a parent freeing up enough time to make meaningful connections with your child. That means learning to be present with your child(ren) and in these crazy chaotic times when we're all attached to our technology, that isn't always easy. But it's worth it. The change in my daughter was dramatic.

Basically, the book taught me that kids have a natural instinct to fit in, to belong. They also want nothing more than to connect with us in a sincere and meaningful way and when they feel like they don't belong or they feel like they aren't "fitting in" in some way, they'll start getting frustrated and/or acting out in various ways. Some of the acting out is because of the frustration and some of it is for attention. Most of us look at kids trying to get attention as a bad thing, a manipulative behavior, but it shouldn't be seen as them "being bad." It's their only way to get their needs met and it's their last ditch, desperate effort to try to make some kind of connection with us, even if the attention we give them is negative. So next time your kid acts up, don't dismiss them or punish them for trying to get attention - GIVE THEM SOME ATTENTION. Don't worry that you're rewarding bad behavior. You're actually preventing it.

Validate your children, meet their needs, connect, give them attention, teach them the skills they need to deal with stress and frustration, and tantrums will pretty much go away - or at least when they happen, everyone will be able to understand and deal with big emotions more easily.

I love this book. It truly changed our lives.

I also have to recommend ALL of Dr. Laura Markham's parenting books in addition. She is equally as amazing.

Mommy, now that I have popcorn and hot chocolate and am outside on top of the car, I want a blanket.

Mommy, is that a meteor?

No, that's a plane -wait! There's one. Oh, nope. That's a helicopter.

Mommy is that one?

No.

Mommy, where I am supposed to look?

Up.

Mommy, I want to see a shooting star.

Yeah, me too! Tell me about it.

Mommy, can I see a meteor?

I hope so!

Mommy? I'm cold.

I just got you a blanket! Hey! I think I might have seen one out of the corner of my eye!

What's the corner of your eye?

My peripheral vision.

I want political vision.

Please don't have any vision of politics.

I saw a meteor!

Sweetie, that is a car going down the street. It's not even in the sky. You have to look up.

Mommy, I don't see anything.

I have a crick in my neck.

(starts screaming) I don't want a cricket in my neck!!! Is there a cricket in my neck??

NO! I just meant my neck hurt. I'm old. It happens when you get old. It has nothing to do with insects.

Mommy?

No. (at this point I am pretty sure that I am hallucinating meteors and can't tell if I am actually seeing any or not.)

Mommy? I want to go inside. This is so boring. Meteor showers are boring.

Fine. Maybe we'll have better luck with the Leonids.

My view of the meteor shower last night was NOTHING like this pretty picture. Click through the photo for the original source which was courtesy of http://www.commdiginews.com/health-science/need-to-know-information-for-2015-perseid-meteor-showers-46450/

Last summer everyone poured buckets of ice water over their heads, then a few weeks ago all the young girls wanted to stick their lips in shot glasses. This week, the latest viral video trend is Charlie Charlie. Suddenly popular with teenagers, Charlie Charlie is a game that has apparently been around in Spanish-speaking countries for years. Cross two pencils on a piece of paper, write down some yeses and nos or whatever other answers you hope to receive and start asking questions. Supposedly a non-existent, Mexican demon named Charlie will then predict the future by spinning the top pencil towards the answer. Sound familiar? I know. The best part is that you’re supposed to record the terrifying, supernatural occurrences and then post the videos to social media.

Concerned parents are completely freaking out about this “dangerous game,” but I’m here to say calm down, moms and dads. Charlie Charlie may be ridiculous, but it’s basically harmless and here’s why:

1.Your kids aren’t summoning demonic forces, unless of course you consider gravity to be a demonic force. Sorry, but if you cross two pencils, the pencil on top is going to roll off. End of story.

2.No matter what the pencils say, I guarantee that your daughter is never going to marry Liam from One Direction.

3.Today’s parents did the same things when they were teenagers. Umm, hello? Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloo-Remember what happens when you say her name three times in front of a mirror? Of course you do, and admit it, you tried it, scared the living hell out of yourself, nothing happened and you were actually kind of disappointed.

4.Remember eighth grade slumber parties and asking the Ouija Board if Chad was going to ask Jennifer to “French” him at the middle school dance? The Ouija Board said he would and he totally didn’t. Proof positive that supernatural beings aren’t answering our most dire questions, and if they are, they sure aren’t very accurate.

5.Look at it this way, it’s not the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge. That, thankfully, lasted all of five minutes. Charlie Charlie will suffer the same fate. Teenagers have very short attention spans.

6.Kids, especially young teens, love a good scare. Charlie Charlie offers them a safe thrill and gives them an excuse to scream and yell and burn off a little steam. It could be much worse. They could be doing far more dangerous things for an adrenaline rush. Think about the alternatives.

7.At least it doesn’t cost anything! When was the last time your kids managed to inexpensively entertain themselves for so long with nothing but two pencils and a piece of paper?

8.Admit it, some of those videos people are posting all over social media of the #CharlieCharlieChallenge really are hilarious.

9.No one actually knows anyone who’s ever been possessed from playing these games. Except that girl down the street’s third cousin twice removed’s neighbor’s daughter’s best friend’s little sister. Wait no. Never mind. She was the one who was killed by the hook-handed, escaped mental patient when she was making out with her boyfriend in the backseat of a car in the woods. So yeah, no one’s ever been possessed.

10.Parents, are your children peeing on the living room carpet? Levitating? Speaking in tongues? No? Everything’s fine. Put a tray of chicken nuggets in the oven, make a box of mac and cheese and go back to your wine and Facebook. Rest assured, we’re all going to survive the Charlie Charlie fad.

The Charlie Charlie Challenge isn’t a big deal. It’s simply the latest incarnation of a schoolyard game that kids around the world have been playing probably forever, only now it’s on video. Games like this help tweens and teens release tension, safely explore fear and death and give them a space to act like total fools with little consequence. Parents don’t need to freak out about Charlie Charlie, but to be on the safe side, just remind your kids that when they’re done they need to say goodbye to Charlie and drop those pencils. You know…just in case. Bwahahahahahahaha.